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JA3 Feedback: Concerns on Art Direction, Immersion and Game Design


scope112

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I have looked forward to a great successor to the Jagged Alliance series for many years. Jagged Alliance 1, DG, 2, and UB are my favorite games, and they still bring great memories. I still replay them every year, which is a testament to the series' quality. 

Jagged Alliance 3 shows great promise with the involvement of Ian Currie and the fact that the creators appear to be fans of the original series. The shared content and screenshot show promise, especially since it does not look like a cheap or hastened production. The devs are putting love and dedication into the game.

However, I do have a few key concerns that relate to game immersiveness and design, which for me and many fans of the series, can be dealbreakers:

1) Art Direction: The chosen art direction looks cartoonish and tailored to young teenagers. A dead giveaway for this is the design of enemies. I cannot take the enemies seriously with the colorful face paint and masks; it looks like a Halloween dress-up party. Also, the mercs' outfits are too colorful; they don't look like mercenaries but rather like a few retired guys enjoying their retirement in the Caribbean.

2) Mercenary Portraits: The portraits lack any real character; they look rather generic. JA1 and JA2 portraits gave you an impression of the character. Moreover, the current portraits do not show any emotional cues; their mouths don't move. This lack of detail and expression inhibits you as a player from having any real attachment to characters like we did in the original series. 

3) Voice Overs: Although we have heard limited voice-overs from characters, the person doing the voice-over for the new merc LiveWire sounds terrible; it sounds like a teen.

4) XCOM 2 Copy Cat: The UI and battle mechanics give the impression that this is more an XCOM 2 copycat than a Jagged Alliance game. I did not enjoy XCOM 2 at all, because the battle system and level design are very restrictive; it limits creativity. Also, the characters in XCOM 2 are highly generic; there needs to be more atmosphere. 

5) Combat Range: In the video footage and screenshot, all combat is focused on close combat. Where are the long-range shootouts? JA2 allowed you to engage up close, in long-range, go guns blasting, or use stealth/night ops. For the longevity and tactical depth of the game, the level design must encourage different approaches. It would be severely limiting only to have short-distance shootouts. 

I hope that the developers can consider these feedback points in their continued efforts to bring a true successor in the Jagged Alliance series to life. Thank you.

Edited by scope112
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  • scope112 changed the title to JA3 Feedback: Concerns on Art Direction, Immersion and Game Design

Yes I also mentioned these points here very often and for me the cartoony portraits/characters that are not animated are still my biggest concern. If that is not done the right way it will never feel like a real Jagged Alliance game. The attachment to the mercs is totally missing and the voice acting at the moment really is not convincing too. So there is still a lot of work necessary to create a true successor.

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I kinda agree and disagree with all these points. ^^

1) Art Direction: 
I like the art direction of the world. And don't think its too cartoonish. I also like how the AIM Mercs look (in the 3D world). However multiple enemies running around with Peg-Legs might be a bit too much. ^^


2) Mercenary Portraits: 
I think they are a mixed bag. I think some are nice, some less so. I mentioned Nails in the other thread which almost looks like a template teenager model with a grey beard. And while its not a deal breaker ofc I would also prefer to have animations.

3) Voice Overs: 
While I won't say it was totally convincing, I thought it was ok. They were much more freakish characters in Jagged Alliance 1.

4) XCOM 2 Copy Cat:
I agree in terms of, yes it's modernized. But I think you should not mix 2 different things here. Just because the interface is modernized it doesnt mean the game mechanics have to be dumbed down. Phoenix Point and King Arthur Knights Tale also have a modern interface and they work extremely well.
And I think the modernization of the interface is also a necessity. There are also things in the JA 2 interface which just feel outdated and bad.

5) Combat Range:

I somewhat disagree here. Check out the Gamescrom stream. You can see that you can attack these enemies which are somewhat far away. Not like 1km or even 100m, but enough to not make it look stupid.

Edited by Kordanor
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I think a successor of JA2 needs in terms of modernization simply a better UI where all commands are easy and fast to reach. JA2 was sometimes really laborious in that category.

 

When I look at the characters I would like to see a more gritty and serious look. Dont get me wrong that does not mean that they can not make jokes. But when everything is too colorful and cartoony even the humor, you can not take the world or the mercs serious anymore. It will get childish.

 

There must be a good balance between serious and humorous. Right now when I look at the short gameplay clips I can not see that the game will be for adults at all except the gore factor. But even the gore is cartoony.

 

There are many things that I like about JA3 mostly the beautiful maps but all these points listed here in this thread really need to be improved or reworked.

Edited by WILDFIRE
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8 hours ago, WILDFIRE said:

I think a successor of JA2 needs in terms of modernization simply a better UI where all commands are easy and fast to reach. JA2 was sometimes really laborious in that category.

 

When I look at the characters I would like to see a more gritty and serious look. Dont get me wrong that does not mean that they can not make jokes. But when everything is too colorful and cartoony even the humor, you can not take the world or the mercs serious anymore. It will get chiddish.

 

There must be a good balance between serious and humorous. Right now when I look at the short gameplay clips I can not see that the game will be for adults at all except the gore factor. But even the gore is cartoony.

 

There are many things that I like about JA3 mostly the beautiful maps but all these points listed here in this thread really need to be improved or reworked.

Totally agree with it, LIVELY Portraits must be make and replace with the current ones. When they die the SKULL icon must also come.

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I agree, while i love the map/world design, the characters really need an adjustment. 

I think maybe the artdirection thought "ok JA Fans loved the funny lines and the individual characters", tried to make them as "individual & funny" as possible, but by doing so overshot into comical/ cartoony/unrealistic area. 

Espescially the enemies: peg leg, painted face...??? P

I mean if this would be a single npc u meet, ok, but to use a model like that as a soldier model that appears multiple times? 

How is this not totally immersion breaking? 

This feels like going in the direction of borderlands or similar, which should absolutely NOT be JA's direction!! 

Like others said,: JA had its funny moments, but they where just more rare sprinkles between all the grittiness and seriousness. 

Because of the darkness small fun things like a witty line here or there could shine. 

 

But now it looks like this oozes out everywhere and i am seriously becoming worried. 

Its things like this that can derail an otherwise finally awesome take on the game and make it another "failed JA game" 

Please dear Devs take this seriously and change here before "its too late, we already finished developement" 

 

 

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While I somewhat agree with you (OP), I have some things to say as the devil's advocate 😉

1) Art Direction: It is colorful, and less gritty, real than JA2. It doesn't look like cartoonish to me, but I understand your feeling of a gap between the two games. I prefered JA2 on that regard, but Heamimont has its own style, let's see how it ends up to be with the whole picture.
Concerning enemies, don't forget we are in a made up african country, and those may be of a specific faction. At least I like that they are recognisable and unique. We'll see them from distance, if you've painted miniatures, you know the details matter differently at that scale.
Concerning mercs, yes they are colorful, but after thoughts, it might be ok with me, for similar reasons as above. On the tactical map, you will recognise each one easiliy, each one with his style.

2) Mercenary Portraits: I don't agree with you here. Nostalgia may fool you. Please go online or in game at look at JA2 portraits and then JA3 portraits, then read again your sentence. JA1, DG and 2 portraits were very real(istic), without any fuss. JA3 portraits convey more about the character, maybe a bit too much if you ask me. In JA2 they felt like passport photos or rather like having visio with them, which was a bit in advance of their time and unrealistic on the battlefield, but worked very well to convey emotions and wharacter with facial animations and voice.
In JA3 they are somewhat closer to the tech of the time. You contact mercs via some kind of ICQ app, they have a less stric photo/portrait, and in game you talk with them with radio. Why would they have visio?
I agree it conveys less character but it has its logic. I hope the conversations and chatter will do the work.
On the positive side, it is possible we will be able to mod the portraits and body pictures, and that will be way easier if they are not animated.

3) Voice Overs: Hard to say anything about this at this moment as we haven't heard many voices. Lifewire's voice seem a bit irritating but maybe that's part of her character. It doesn't sound 'bad' in quality to me as of now.

4) XCOM 2 Copy Cat: I hear this a lot around. Well, slap me if you want, but I liked XCOM2. But that is not the matter 😉 I don't think JA3 has similar mechanics. Some things are revamped, modernized, but I don't see XCOM2. Could you elaborate on this?
Maybe it's the overwatch (not similar and better than interrupt in JA2 imho)? The movement layout (only shows where you can go with current APs and stance it seems)? The special actions (might be a good thing to give something unique to a merc or a type of weapon)?

5) Combat Range: Hard to say anything about this at this time. It is a difficult balance to allow all playstyles, melee, pistol range, AR, up to sniper range on the same map. JA2 did cut weapon ranges by 10, but still, melee for example was still really hard to play. I'd personaly wouldnt want snipers to rule the game. It's more enjoyable to have CQC even if it's less realistic sometimes.

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JA2 had humour that was often black comedy, which worked very well alongside the obvious violence and aftermath (e.g. carrion birds). Some of it was pure comedy but kept restrained in its amount (Deidranna constantly chastising Elliot and your mercs visiting the brothel).

I am wondering if the art direction has inspiration from the Tropico games that Haemimont Games previously worked on? Are any of the artists that are working on JA3, artists that have previously worked on the earlier Tropico 3, 4 and 5? While maybe not quite as cartoony, they still have similar bright and bold colours.

I am hoping the peg leg characters will be a one-off character, rather than frequent enemies you have to fight. That would go from being comical to being downright silly.

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Wanted to add that the new UI right now is already looking good. Every command can be reached fast and easy and the overview map looks great. I am still not sure about the perk system and that every merc has a specific class but lets wait and see.

 

In the gamescom gameplay footage you can already realize that long-range combat is definitely possible. I just hope that the maps get way bigger and more open so that you have many possibilities to solve a fight.

 

Keep in mind that the overall art design is not finished yet. I guess sometimes the critic sounds a little bit harsh but from my side I wanted to say that many mercs look great like Wolf, Blood, Red and Grizzly. The design is far away from bad. But other characters like Deedee dont really fit in and are too cartoony. So I hope some NPCs/mercs will be more realistic and serious in the end.

 

My biggest wish is that we get more lifely(animated) portraits and characters in the hire screen, on the battlefield and in the conversation screen.        

 

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Long range combat is vital as it will create a use for sniper rifles, bolt-actions, battle rifles and machine guns. Hopefully a suppression mechanic will be in the game as machine guns will really come into their element, whether they are heavy machine guns (e.g. M2HB in .50 BMG), general purpose (M240 in 7.62x51mm) or squad automatic weapons (M249 in 5.56mm). Having one of those to lay down fire as your other mercs close the distance, so they can use assault rifles, carbines, SMGs and shotguns will show the value of a weapon like that, rather than just being 'nice to have'.

Hopefully, there will be further in-game mechanics that limit the use of sniper rifles and single shot fire. I have said this in numerous posts and covered it in detail in my own thread on Weapon Characteristics. Sniping should be reserved for the mercs skilled in using such a weapon, rather than just having every merc with a high weapon skill being adept at sniping. Single shot fire (bolt-action or semi-auto) shouldn't win out over full auto fire like in JA2 (except at point blank range). If you get rid of being allowed to choose which body part to aim for, unless at close range or through a full power telescopic sight - provided the target is not running, that will make it so you can't just keep shooting an enemy in the head all the time to quickly kill them, due to having so much body armour. In real life, shooting at an enemy in the distance that is using cover, moving around and possibly shooting back, makes choosing their head to hit extremely hard to do.

Again, map sizes will not only create multiple ways to attack and defeat the enemy, it will create the necessary variety for the various weapons. Closer ranges, such as when going into buildings, should make SMGs, handguns, shotguns and carbines a viable choice. Where their range is lowered (and if using pistol calibres, weaker damage per bullet), their lighter weight and shorter length should be advantageous compared to anything else. You get that by having less action point cost to aim and shoot, plus depending on the weapon and ammunition fired, possibly less recoil per bullet.

I know I have explained all of this so many times and in greater detail, but it doesn't hurt to keep saying it until we know what the battlefield ranges will be like and that no weapon type dominates all of the others.

Edited by Solaris_Wave
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I really hope that you can solve all conflicts with silenced weapons while you are sneaking through the maps. Sure it should be very tough but I want the possibility that I technically can do that.

 

Also it would be great if the game had a day and night cycle so that you can wait for the night and than sneak in for a full stealth approach. But I guess this is already in the game.

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If suppressed weapons are handled correctly, they won't dominate the game to the point of making unsuppressed weapons less effective. Some games just let you stick a can on the gun, make it harder to be detected by the enemy and there are no negatives.

In reality, a suppressor will lower the velocity so the overall range of the weapon is reduced. The bullet travels slower so its accuracy at range is less and that slower speed means the damage per bullet is lower. Bullet penetration through cover is reduced too. That might be a good thing or bad thing, depending on what you are trying to hit, or avoid hitting.

Suppressors can be long and heavy. This increases overall length of the gun. That along with the extra weight makes the gun more cumbersome. To translate that into the game, the longer and heavier a gun is, I say it should cost more action points to fire the first bullet in that game turn (due to pointing and aiming the gun). Follow up shots are faster in general unless the merc moves. This overall means that by staying still, you zero in on your intended target.

Follow up shots with a suppressed weapon are easier because of reduced recoil but the gun will heat up more and the suppressor will wear out. Firing fully automatic isn't recommended as it causes the suppressor to cook and eventually be useless at suppressing anything. They get hot anyway so semi-auto and single shot is the better method. You would need to perform maintenance on both the suppressor and your gun in-between combat (or maybe even during, if the situation got that bad). If you wrecked the suppressor from firing too much, you would just have to perform maintenance on your gun and look for a new suppressor altogether.

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7 hours ago, Solaris_Wave said:

In reality, a suppressor will lower the velocity so the overall range of the weapon is reduced. The bullet travels slower so its accuracy at range is less and that slower speed means the damage per bullet is lower. Bullet penetration through cover is reduced too. That might be a good thing or bad thing, depending on what you are trying to hit, or avoid hitting.

False, suppressors do not alter the velocity in a substantial way. You may get a change in point of impact and need to re-zero the gun but they do not lower the velocity any more than a individual cartridge to another, in some cases they can even increase velocity. A suppressor is normally not an extension of the actual barrel but rather a "relatively large space to capture the gases" the bullet passes through unhindered once it exits the barrel. And if you would use a rifled suppressor that is a extension of the barrel you would be very likely to get an increase in velocity rather than decrease. There a very few gun/caliber combinations were the length of the gun barrel is so long that the gases have time to burn up and loose speed before exiting the barrel.

Of course I am assuming everything is installed and aligned correctly.

However for a suppressor to be really effective you will need a bullet that travels at sub sonic speeds, and it still creates about the same noise as opening a champagne bottle. For example a 5.56 cartridges will normally travel around 950m/s and the speed of sound is 343m/s, to get that 5.56 to travel at subsonic speed you would need to loose almost 2/3 of the velocity effectively making it about as powerful as a .22lr.

 

7 hours ago, Solaris_Wave said:

Suppressors can be long and heavy. This increases overall length of the gun. That along with the extra weight makes the gun more cumbersome. To translate that into the game, the longer and heavier a gun is, I say it should cost more action points to fire the first bullet in that game turn (due to pointing and aiming the gun). Follow up shots are faster in general unless the merc moves. This overall means that by staying still, you zero in on your intended target.

Follow up shots with a suppressed weapon are easier because of reduced recoil but the gun will heat up more and the suppressor will wear out.

Well I agree they do add a bit of weight at the front of a gun but it makes up with it since the gun becomes more pleasant to shot. The extra weight do become noticeable if you are shooting whit out any support for your arms for some time.

 

7 hours ago, Solaris_Wave said:

Firing fully automatic isn't recommended as it causes the suppressor to cook and eventually be useless at suppressing anything. They get hot anyway so semi-auto and single shot is the better method. You would need to perform maintenance on both the suppressor and your gun in-between combat (or maybe even during, if the situation got that bad). If you wrecked the suppressor from firing too much, you would just have to perform maintenance on your gun and look for a new suppressor altogether.

I would think that any decent military suppressor (stainless steel) could take a hell of a beating before melting. Sadly I am no longer able to find a video of suppressor mounted to a machinegun where they run through 600 rounds before sticking the suppressor in a water tray, then shake it of and continue to fire.

Older suppressors were indeed prone to failure or become unsuppressed after continuous fire or a certain amount of bullets through them due to the limits of material and design back in the day.

For JA3 I would like if suppressors were very useful to suppress the noise of pistols and smgs, snipers with suppressed rifles should be harder for enemies to locate at a distance. While suppressing an "assault rifle" is most effective to give the merc a more pleasant gun to shoot.

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I got a little mixed up on velocity being affected by suppressors. I was thinking of integral suppressors, like on the MP5SD, deliberately reducing bullet velocity to quieten the shot. The same can be said for old fashioned suppressors that contained 'wipes'. They would slow the bullet and be very quiet. However, they didn't last long as further bullets would shoot through the wipes until they had no effect.

As you said, subsonic ammunition these days plays a significant role in reducing noise and they have a lower velocity.

I didn't really want to include the fact that some suppressors can actually increase velocity (which isn't by much) as I didn't want to confuse anybody, such as the developers, if they were looking at balancing the use of suppressors in JA3. Everything else remains valid though, I believe.

Weight can be a good thing as more weight lowers recoil. That said, some suppressors are heavy and you can feel that extra weight on the end of the barrel. Again, it is an older suppressor but I remember thinking how heavy the Soviet PBS-1 felt.

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21 hours ago, Solaris_Wave said:

Long range combat is vital as it will create a use for sniper rifles, bolt-actions, battle rifles and machine guns. Hopefully a suppression mechanic will be in the game as machine guns will really come into their element, whether they are heavy machine guns (e.g. M2HB in .50 BMG), general purpose (M240 in 7.62x51mm) or squad automatic weapons (M249 in 5.56mm).

Just wanted to mention that a suppression mechanic is in the game, you can see it at this timestamp where Livewire get a suppression debuff. So far we didnt see what this is doing though.

https://youtu.be/1a9oprKEl8A?t=189

 

 

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Thanks for the link. I couldn't really tell what effect it had though, like you stated. I wonder if being suppressed affects your total action point allowance in those turns that you stay suppressed, while at the same time affecting morale? It should probably also affect accuracy if trying to shoot back.

Effects from low morale would eventually lead to panic, leading to a variety of results: a turn could be missed as they become unresponsive and then they either remain where they are but cower in place, fire wildly in the direction of the enemy, run off to another location they consider to be safer, flee the battlefield altogether, or try to surrender.

How experienced that person is would lessen the chance of losing morale so quickly.

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We have not seen much of the morale system yet, so I am really interested how deep the mechanic goes. Do mercs react differently when they get under pressure? Should you even position your tougher mercs in the frontline that is closer to the enemy, so that the weaker mercs wont loose their mind?

 

You could create so many various scenarios with all these characters. Also what if you put a crazy rookie merc in a team of professionals? Will they leave or kill him if he risks the life of all squad members?

 

Fear, anger, trust and experience should always influence the teams morale. For example if a weaker merc gets suppressive fire but has a good bond with the rest of the team he should keep his mind and win the fight but if you have a team where no one trusts each other the fear is greater and so the team could not handle extreme situations.

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I think it would make sense for certain mercs to be very good in a command role. I can't remember whether JA2 showed their former ranks when they served in their nation's forces. Were any of them former officers that by nature will have good leadership? Whether the other mercs trust that leadership is another thing entirely, especially if they are from typically opposing nations (would an American merc want to be commanded by a Russian or Chinese merc, for example?).

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9 hours ago, Solaris_Wave said:

I think it would make sense for certain mercs to be very good in a command role. I can't remember whether JA2 showed their former ranks when they served in their nation's forces. Were any of them former officers that by nature will have good leadership? Whether the other mercs trust that leadership is another thing entirely, especially if they are from typically opposing nations (would an American merc want to be commanded by a Russian or Chinese merc, for example?).

Hahah good 1, thats why i got my team almost up and ready already on my mind with Ivan, Fidel, Fauda, Igor & Vicki.

Leadership is also a important point, there should be at least 1 merc with over 60 leadership on your first team. Guess that could be my own IMP character like it was in JA2, in late game i had surely also Miguel in my team. A return from Miguel would be a good 1 but maybe too much. 

 

In Jagged Alliance RAGE Grunty was the absolute leader, had also a nice rage skill that fire up the whole squad and give you some extra action points.

 

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Perks could be called something like 'Natural Leader' or 'Commanding Presence'. They would give a bonus to morale and be able rally those who are wavering or in full blown panic.

I'm not sure how they could overcome Suppression but maybe they could limit how fast it increased if it was in effect. Sometimes, no matter how inspiring your commander is, if lots of bullets are chewing up the ground next to you, they are going to think otherwise.

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